


Losing - Lost - Finding - Found

by Dana



Series: Life on Mars Drabbles [2]
Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: Community: lifein1973, Drabble, Drabble Set, Gen, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-02
Updated: 2014-05-02
Packaged: 2018-02-28 20:29:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2745944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dana/pseuds/Dana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Sam had wanted was to wake up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Losing - Lost - Finding - Found

**Author's Note:**

> [LifeIn1973](http://lifein1973.dreamwidth.org/) Friday drabble challenge #279 – _M.A.R.S_.
> 
> m = marble, a = attic, r = reason, s = spade

Losing

He'd been pissed and heartbroken, didn't know what to do. His father was gone, gone forever, and it was all Sam's fault.

'Lost yer bloody marbles, Tyler,' Gene says, disappointment in his voice, sorrow, too. 'Would've 'appened, sooner or later. Later it is.'

Sam wants to say he's sorry, but the words won't come, and maybe they never will. And Gene, confronted with Sam's silence (everything Sam won't say, can't say, not yet – what has him strapped to this hospital bed in the first place) turns and leaves, not speaking another word.

All Sam had wanted was to wake up. 

—————

Lost

Something is wrong, and whatever that something is, somehow Annie knows it has to do with Sam. The Guv sets them to the tasks at hand – two robberies and a murder, plenty to keep busy, and he doesn't mention Sam, not even to complain: like a thing locked inside an attic, gathering dust, forgotten.

She asks, eventually. 'Bit of the flu, is all,' is what he says. 

Annie suggests they go round Sam's flat once work is over. But the Guv's nowhere to be found at the end of the day, and nobody answers when Annie knocks at Sam's door. 

—————

Finding

A blaggered Sam stumbled out the pub that night, Gene following shortly after.   Needed to keep an eye on his mad DI, just because – no other reason was needed.  A good thing, too – otherwise, Sam wouldn't just be in hospital, but rather he'd be dead.

Can't tell Annie. What could he say? 

'Didn't wanna die,' Sam mutters, next Gene sees him. 'Just wanted to wake up.' 

Sam is: small and pale, strapped to a hospital bed; under a suicide watch; pending a possible psychological evaluation; maybe just as loony as ever. 

'There's a difference?'

If there is, Sam doesn't say. 

—————

Found

Like a child with a spade, Gene digs at the dirt of Sam's resolve, watching as it crumbles. Maybe Gene's the only one who knows what Sam's done, so he has to make Gene understand. That Sam's not a coward. That he did what he did because it had to be done.

(should have raged, shouted, maybe even hit him... but Gene only seemed sad)

So Sam tells him about his father – about Vic Tyler. How he's four and thirty-seven this year. How he's just put his future in Gene's hands, because he trusts him. 

Sam leaves it at that. 


End file.
